First steps:
The frontman of the Rambling, Vajk Király (acoustic guitars, vocals) started giving concerts as a soloist in 1993, but not long after that he was joined by István Harmati alias "Maci" on harmonica and Anetta Tóth, vocalist (at first for only a couple of songs). Soon there was a change on the post of the harmonica player, "Maci" was succeeded by Tamás Hrabovszky who was already the mouth-organ player of the wakening band Blues Bell, but luckily he took the challenge and accepted to work in both bands. A few months later, in May 1994 the small band appeared in the Májulás '94 Festival in Szeged - called from this point on 'Rambling Blues'.
This first more serious formation participated in the First National Blues and Bluesrock Talent Scouting Competition in Budapest on 2 September in 1994, where the judges ranked them among the best. Out of the 23 debuting bands they were the only acoustic group.
Stimulated by the success they entered for the Blues and Jazz Festival and Competition on 12 March 1995 in Budapest, where they received the illustrious second place. On this occasion they had a guest István Rakovics, who was at the time the affectionate blues-hearted guitarist of the Molnár Dixieland Band.
In the summer of 1995 the band's female vocalist, Anetta Toth, finishing her studies in Szeged waved good-bye to the city and unfortunately to Rambling Blues as well. The farewell performance took place on Student's Island '95 (Diáksziget '95).
The current trio:
When it turned out that she's leaving it also came to surface that there are many talented girls around Szeged with excellent blues style singing. After many try-outs, instead of a vocalist, they decided to take in Csaba Szabó, the drummer, who has already been a guest musician for the band on several occasions. He uses snare drum and hi-hats for base and a washboard, sheep bell, etc. for special effects. This is how Rambling Blues Trio was formed at the beginning of 1996 and ever since then this friendship has kept on working well:
Király Vajk acoustic and dobro guitars, vocals, kazoo, ukulele
Hrabovszky Tamás harmonica, vocals
Szabó Csaba percussions, washboard
Since they were always called as „Rambling” anyhow, in 2020 they left the „Blues Trio” words behind from the band name, so today they are the „Rambling”.
Concerts and style:
Already since 1996 they have had around 90-100 concerts yearly all over the country at clubs, pubs and festivals. Also, they had offers to play from abroad, at first in ex-Yugoslavia then clubs in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Italy.
It was a great honor to be invited to the Dobrofest of 1998, which had taken place for the seventh time in the Slovakian city of Trnava.
One of their most memorable tours happened in 2000, between 27th of April and 7th of May. I was a successful, 13-gigs tour mostly in Germany where they appeared on several big festivals and in exclusive clubs.
The style of the band is mainly based on the American acoustic folk music of the 20's and 30's which includes country blues, ragtime blues, Mississippi or delta blues. As this style is hardly known in Hungary, they have proclaimed to have an aim to present this music, the "roots", to show how variable blues can be.
To be loyal to the style most songs are in English. The wide repertoire of the songs can be heard in a "rambling" style, using their individual voices and trying to adapt the original recordings to all their audiences.
